Dispa-SET is provided with a ready-to-use dataset of the EU28 (+Norway +Switzerland) power system. A detailed description of the model and of the selected input data is available in [1] and [2].

The power plants in the model are represented as a cluster of units powered by the same fuel type and technology. They can be modelled together with a large number of RES units with separate hourly distribution curves.

The model is expressed as an optimization problem. Continuous variables include the individual unit dispatched power, the shedded load and the curtailed power generation. The binary variables are the commitment status of each unit. The main model features can be summarized as follows:

Minimum and maximum power for each unit

Power plant ramping limits

Reserves up and down

Minimum up/down times

Load Shedding

Curtailment

Pumped-hydro storage

Non-dispatchable units (e.g. wind turbines, run-of-river, etc.)

Start-up, ramping and no-load costs

Multi-nodes with capacity constraints on the lines (congestion)

Constraints on the targets for renewables and/or CO2 emissions

Yearly schedules for the outages (forced and planned) of each units

CHP power plants and thermal storage

Integer clustering: a representative unit is considered for each technology and multiplied N times.

The demand is assumed to be inelastic to the price signal. The MILP objective function is therefore the total generation cost over the optimization period.

A specific config file is provided with the standard Dispa-SET installation (starting from v2.3). After installing Dispa-SET and checking that everything is fine, you can run the EU model in different ways: